Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti Casserole

This was the best thing we ate last week. It was quick and delicious!! I saw a version of this on Pinterest. It looked so good that I had to add it to the menu ASAP!

You probably have everything you need to make this pasta dish in your pantry right now. This can be made ahead of time and baked when you are ready. I love these kind of dishes. The pasta was really creamy and wonderful! We both absolutely loved it. It was even better the next day at lunch. This will be going into our usual dinner rotation!

In a skillet, brown the ground beef until cooked through; drain fat and stir in spaghetti sauce. Set aside.

Cook spaghetti according to directions on packet. Drain and place cooked spaghetti in bowl. Add cream cheese, Italian Seasoning and minced garlic. Stir until cream cheese is melted and the spaghetti is thoroughly coated.

Lightly grease a 9x13" pan. Spread a small amount of meat sauce in the bottom of the dish. Put spaghetti on top of sauce and top with remaining meat sauce. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

It's in the oven right now and has 20 min left to bake. I used sausage, added some onion, and sprinkled with mozzarella cheese that I had on hand. I'm going to make a slice of Texas toast and a little dinner salad to go with it.

This was a HUGE Hit at my house over the weekend. Although, I made a minor change using pork and turkey in place of the beef (my daughter does not eat beef) and it was absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe.

When you get to the part of adding the cream cheese to the spaghetti, are you supposed to pre soften the cream cheese???

I found it VERY hard to stir the cream cheese block into the spaghetti and have it melt, I ended up putting it back on the stove over low heat to try and help melt it and it still didn't help that much. Or is there part of the directions missing?? Not sure.

Can you make this ahead to the point of putting it the casserole dish and then throw it in the oven later? Thinking i may just have to cook it a little longer than 30 to warm through? Would work great on the night my kids have sports. Thanks :)

Made this yesterday for dinner from leftovers the night before and we all loved it! Would def have this over lasagna any day. This really was a nice change. I did add shredded mozzarella cheese along with parmesan. As far as being dry I wouldn't know as my brother inlaw took the leftovers to work :) But I would add a little lite butter or olive oil when reheating.

I made this for dinner tonight! I knew right away that I will be making it often...my husband licked his sketti bowl!!! The only 2 changes -add sour cream to make it even creamier but that's just a personal preference! And I used chicken instead beef..It was SOOO yummy!! Thank you for sharing!

I'm so excited to try this!!! I was thinking about what to have tonight for dinner and remembered I pinned this from Pinterest!!! Thanks for all of your recipes. I've tried several and haven't found one we don't love!!!

Tomatoes are so plentiful and affordable right now that I made a meat sauce with slow roasted tomatoes and then followed this recipe. OMG, is this good! The home-made sauce is sooooo easy and makes a great recipe just incredible.

I just happened to stumble across this site. I had a wholr heap of cream cheese in the fridge that I had no clue what to do with. I had all the other ingredients in stock. I was just going to make my typical pasta and meatsauce tonight. I saw this recipe and had ti make it. Wow, it is so yummy. This will be a new regular. Thank you!!!

I made this tonight with a few changes and it was really good. I sautéed diced onion, celery, carrot and sliced mushrooms with the garlic before browning lean ground beef. I used whole wheat in spaghetti and low fat cream cheese and added a 16 oz bag of chopped broccoli (thawed) to that. I was surprised at how thick the noodle mixture became with the cream cheese addition so I added 1 cup of sour cream to help blend it all together better. (Next time I will remember to save some of the pasta cooking water and use that instead). I might also increase the amount of tomato sauce next time, as well. We both enjoyed this meal and I'll be making it again. It really does make a lot of food so we'll easily get 3 dinners out of this. I will try freezing a portion, as well.

Follow up to my post on May 10: This is even better as leftovers! The flavors have a chance to meld together and it reheats beautifully in the oven. I did warm up extra tomato sauce to spoon over individual servings and that really helped it not have a "dry" consistency to it. We are on our 3rd night of this casserole and still have enough for one more lunch or dinner! It really does make a lot of food and would be great for a potluck or family gathering. This is also a meal I would make without meat as I think it's substantial enough without it when adding broccoli to the cream cheese & pasta layer and onions, carrots, and celery to the sauce. Also, in my post above, I meant to type "thin spaghetti" and not "in spaghetti".

Made this last night for dinner and loved it. The flavor was great and I can't wait to devour the left-overs. The only negative I can say is that it was a teeny bit dry, but I think that's because I could only find a 24oz jar of sauce. Oh, and my husband wanted more meat, but he always wants more meat, so that doesn't count, hehe :) Thanks for a great recipe!

I made this tonight for my meat and potatos husband ... HUGE success. I had some sliced pepperoni that I needed to use so I just placed them over the meat sauce before adding cheese. Next time I am going to use the Sargento Italian 6 cheese shredded cheese, as well as the parmesan and probably 32 ozs. of sauce. I didn't tonight but I normally add a couple of tbsp of brown sugar to my Italian sauces. I plan on doing that next time as well. My husband is excited about left overs tomorrow!!

I just found this recipe on Pinterest the other day and made it for dinner tonight. It was delicious! The only problem I had was that it turned out a little dry but it could have been my fault as halfway through cooking, I discovered that I was out of spaghetti so I cooked linguine instead. I will definitely be adding this to our favorites list. Thank you (0=

I made this last night, and it was a huge hit. The only thing I found was next time I will use more than just 1 jar of sauce, it turned out pretty dry. Other than that it was very good and the kids loved it vs. just plain ole spaghetti. Thanks!!

My husband hates spaghetti but I crave it - a problem I've been trying to solve for 9 years. Last night when he walked in I asked him "So, do you know what tonight is?" I saw a wave of panic cross his face, his mind racing through anniversary/special dates. In my best attempt at sexy (which is just awful), I said "Tonight is the night...I turn you on to spaghetti!" He cracked up, and even better, we both LOVED it! Thank you :)

I found this on Pinterest today and was a little skeptical about cream cheese and spaghetti. It smelled delicious and after one bite all my husband and I could say was "oh my gosh." Hands down, new favorite food! Thanks for the recipe!!

Hey there. Making this for dinner tonight for the "crew". Been on my menu a while so I'm looking forward to this. Question: my niece just had a baby and I'm taking them dinner this weekend, would this freeze ok if they want to save it? Thanks! Love your food as always. So kid friendly. Figured you have a slew of 'em running around.

Has anyone prepared this prior to baking? Curious on cooking the meat and noodles and putting it all together, leaving it in the fridge until I'm ready to bake it in the evening. Thoughts? Anyone try this?

So simple and quick to make. Perfect comfort food. I prepared this ahead of time so baked it longer. 30 min covered then 35 min uncovered. I used ground turkey, low fat cream cheese, and lots of garlic. I also doubled the sauce and topped it with fontina cheese along with the parmesean. It was killer! Everyone loved it! Thank you :)

I made a couple of small changes. I used Italian sausage instead of ground beef, and added a box of frozen chopped spinach (thawed, drained). Hubby is currently on his 3rd serving! Turned out great & enough left overs for the week!

Yum! We all loved this recipe! I ended up sautéing my garlic clove before browning the beef; also put the assembled casserole under the broiler to brown the cheese rather than cooking it for 30 min. Loved it!

Made this last night. I forgot to add the Italian Seasoning, but even then it was delicious. I actually divided it up into two 8x8 brownie pans and froze one for later (there's just the two of us). Served with garlic bread and a caesar salad. YUM!

Yum! I don't used process spegetti sauce. I love to make my own that's easy and so yummy. I'd substitue that and do the rest! I already use hamburger meat or ground sausage in my sauce so that I wouldn't do double.

start to brown meat and halfway through add the seasonings and then add the veggies, except the tomatoes. You add those after the veggies are fully cooked.

It's actually really easy and so much better than canned sauce and also more texture and not just saucey. You can add tomato paste or some sauce in a can by the canned tomatos to make it more saucy if you like.

So good! My son loves me to make it and freeze individual serving for him to take back to college! I have to get it in the freezer quickly so I don't eat it all myself. Italian sausage is a good addition.

Very very good. Easy to modify with gluten free spaghetti (I like the Heartland brand). I used Rao's Marinara. I also covered with foil and baked for 25 minutes, then uncovered topped with mozzarella and parmesan and baked for 6 additional minutes.

I used reduced fat cream cheese, soy crumbles instead of ground beef. Also, I left the cream cheese out to soften for a bit and used my hand mixer to whip it up with the garlic and Italian seasoning - wanted to make sure everything was well blended before adding the hot pasta.

This was delicious and I don't even like spaghetti. First time I made it I had to use 24 ounce of spaghetti sauce because 28 ounce is non existent around me. It was yummy but too dry. Second time I bought 2 24 ounces of spaghetti sauce and used the whole 16 ounce box of spaghetti noodles. That completely solved dry problem and me having to guess 12 ounces out of the 16 ounce spaghetti box. Also in the Ragu garlic and herb sauce added italian seasoning, chopped garlic, parsley, oregano and a little brown sugar

This was delicious! I came across this recipe when i searched cream cheese recipes because I had a block of 1/3 less fat cream cheese that needed to be used up. The pasta sauce I had on hand was only 24 oz so I also used an 8 oz can of no sodium tomato sauce. I also diced an onion very small and cooked it with the meat. I did add extra seasoning to the meat and sauce due to using the 8 oz can of sauce that didn't have as much flavor as the jarred sauce. I also added about 1 cup of water that I cooked the pasta in to help melt the cream cheese and make it easier to stir together with the noodles. I was out of parmesan so I subbed light mozzarella in the same amount. Thanks for the great, easy recipe!

I found this on pinterest the other night and just made it! I'm vegetarian, so I substituted the beef for Morningstar crumbles (which is a perfect ground beef sub). Holy cow it was delicious and so easy to make! Thanks for the awesome recipe!

Wanted to make lasagna tonight, but no eggs. I remembered my Grandmother used to make a spaghetti casserole, so I googled it and found this! Heading to the kitchen now to make for dinner. Sounds delicious and easily made gluten free!

I've got this in the oven right now and it if it smells 1/10th as good it tastes, we are in for a great dinner. The changes I made: I tossed the garlic into the beef as it finished up (only because I had frozen garlic cubes on hand and needed extra heat), and I added extra cheese(s). I added a little parmesan into the pasta sauce, and then topped it with parmesan, provolone, and mozzarella. It was quick, easy, and I did have everything in the pantry on-hand! Thanks. :)